Dispatch from the far side of a 200 day practice challenge.

Ben Capozzi recieves his 200 day practice challenge trophy from his teacher, Ms. Sonia

Dispatch from the far side of a 200 day practice challenge.

By Kim Capozzi

I never thought we were practice challenge people. When other children were handed those shiny trophies at recitals, I always looked at the parents and thought THEY deserved the trophy. It was all I could do to get us to the piano most days; I didn’t need the pressure of every single day.

But my son Ben, 8, who is in his 3^rd year of piano study at CYM, had his own ideas. He wanted a trophy for a 200 Day Practice Challenge. Once he decided he was going for it, that meant of course that we were going for it.

We are now on the other side of those 200 days straight of practice and the shiny trophy sits on a cleared off shelf in Ben’s room.  The practice challenge was even harder than I thought it would be. But not for the reasons I would have guessed.

It turns out making time for music every single day wasn’t so hard. We were pretty close to doing that anyway. The trouble came when we reached a rough patch, like when a new piece became frustrating, or Ben was tired, or one of us was having a bad day. I realized I no longer had my escape hatch – ending practice when things are getting ugly.

Suzuki parents are taught early on that practice should be a positive encounter, and it’s much better to step away from practice than to damage your relationship with your child by losing your patience or saying something you regret. It’s not supposed happen very often.  Apparently I’d been relying on the step away quite a bit. Because when we hit those moments of resistance or tension, I struggled to get around them.

A typical scene a few months into our practice challenge:

Ben: “Mom, did I do enough practice? Does it count?” We’d only been practicing for five minutes.

Mom: “Not quite. I’d like to hear you repeat the B section a few more times.”

 Ben: “I’m too tired! I tried my best, I can’t do anymore!”

 Mom: “I have a few more assignments I’d like to do.”   I begin to lose patience.

Ben:  Groans. “Fine!” He races through a piece. “Now am I done?”

Mom:  I say something I regret. “Listen, I’m not going to fight with you. If you aren’t going to work with me, then I’m ending practice. And it won’t count for our calendar.”   Damage done.

“NO! NO! I want to practice! I want to practice!” And we’d practice, but often painfully as the frustration, fear of failure or whatever was bothering him never left the piano bench, and we continued to clash. Looking back on this, I’m pretty sure this is exactly NOT what our teachers would want from a practice challenge.

Fortunately, I also realized it wasn’t what I wanted for our practices, ever.  Miss Sonia, Ben’s teacher, helped me see what was going wrong.  Ben awoke early one Saturday in tears because we had forgotten to practice the night before. “If I practice now, can it count for last night?” We remembered that he had actually played the piano and guitar with a friend that night as part of their play. But I told him since it wasn’t a formal practice, we had to ask his teacher.

In our next class, Sonia said that for someone at Ben’s level, musical activities did count. I also think she picked up on the tension at home.

“A practice challenge is just a way to help the kids make a commitment to practice,” she said. “And it’s supposed to be fun.”

Oh yeah, fun. I missed fun.  I trotted out some of my old tricks, like playing games or rewarding repetitions with chocolate chips, but they weren’t getting us there. So I turned to the Suzuki Association of the Americas Parents as Partners Online seminars, which were getting started around this time. I stayed online late into the night taking notes about the benefits of review and reviving stalled practice sessions.  

 Ben and I had made a lot of progress, and our challenges were no longer those in teaching a young child. I was now supporting a growing musician.  Nonetheless, a big improvement came for us when I started sticking around in the same room while Ben practiced, instead of heading to the kitchen to cook dinner while he worked things out on his own.  His pieces had grown more complicated, and I needed to watch him.  And I think Ben needed to know I was there, even as he was growing more independent.

The whole experience reminded me that just like anything in parenting, guiding your child’s music education is something you learn as you go, and is constantly evolving.  Just when you think you’ve got it – whether it’s a toddler’s sleep schedule or how to get a young musician to perfect his Twinkles  – it changes. As parent teachers, we have to keep up with our kids.

Do I think I deserve a trophy for getting through this practice challenge? No, the trophy is all Ben’s.  But I admit I enjoy looking at it almost as much as he does.